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A Short History of This Site

October 05, 2004

This site first came to life in September of 2002. I registered the domain challies.com primarily as a place to display photos of my children. My parents and siblings had moved down to Atlanta a few years earlier, and I wanted to be able to provide them with updated pictures of those of us who elected to remain in the north. At that time this site was more a photo album than anything else. However, every now and then I would take the time to do some writing. My 5-part series about Calvinism and the article entitled The Myth of Mother Teresa both came from that time. There was little traffic on this site, but I went ahead and posted them anyways.

A few months after the site was launched I started to do some research on a topic that escapes my memory at the moment (but I think it may have been creationism). As I combed the Internet looking for applicable articles I came across two sites that would be foundational in turning my site into something more. First, I found Southern View Chapel, the home of Garry Gilley and Think on These Things Ministries. I saw his lists of book reviews, read through a lot of them and found them very helpful. I was an avid reader and thought it was great that he would share his thoughts on these books with the rest of the world. I also came across He Lives, the blog of David Heddle. I found it an excellent resource for Christian topics. It was really the first blog I had read and I was quite taken with the idea. From his site I connected with many other blogs and decided right away that I had to make my site into a blog. I went ahead and found some blogging software, got it installed and began to write.

At first I focused on book reviews, but soon expanded into other topics. I tried to post every couple of days, but as the weeks went on found my posts getting farther and farther apart. On October 31 of last year I decided I would either have to stop blogging or begin to take it more seriously, so on that day I decided I would blog every day for a whole year. There has never been a hobby I have stuck with for more than a few weeks at a time, until this one. At the time I’m writing this I’m only a couple of weeks away from achieving my goal. And of course I intend to renew my commitment. I am quite addicted to it now.

Blogging really has changed my life. I look at it as a spiritual discipline – something I do to ensure that I continue to grow spiritually. If I stopped growing I have to assume that I would rapidly run out of things to write about. There have been a few times in the past year where I have gotten tired of it and have become lax spiritually, and it’s amazing how quickly my writing falls accordingly. So to stay sharp I have to keep reading, keep learning, keep growing.

Of course the best part of blogging has been getting involved in a small, but powerful community online. I have had the privilege of getting to know many people I otherwise never would have met. Many of these people are fellow bloggers, while others hang out in the forums. While I love writing and sharing my thoughts on a variety of issues, it is through the subsequent comments and discussion that I have grown the most.

About Tim Challies

I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario, and am a co-founder of Cruciform Press.